Replies

Certainly. The arguments made from statements in Congress that were made during the passage of the four Alien and Sedition Acts about "natural born citizens" had nothing whatsoever to do with the phrase as used in the Constitution concerning presidential eligibility. Rather they had to do with those born here as opposed to those coming here and then being naturalized. In fact the debate of the time that led to the Alien and Sedition Acts resembled in some respects the present debate concering illegal aliens, who are sometimes referred to as an "invasion" particularly from Mexico.

At the time of the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts we were in what became known as the "undeclared war witih France." The concern was on the part of the Federalists with what they saw as an invasion of Frenchmen bent on undermining our republic.

Here are some links where you can find out about these events and the attitudes of the era which led to the Alien and Sedition Acts:

http://www.sparknotes.com/testprep/books/sat2/history/chapter7section2.rhtml

http://www.ushistory.org/us/19e.asp

http://www.crf-usa.org/america-responds-to-terrorism/the-alien-and-sedition-acts.html

http://www.firstamendmentstudies.org/wp/alien.html

http://www.enotes.com/alien-sedition-acts-1798-reference/alien-sedition-acts-1798

http://www.history.org/foundation/journal/winter07/alien.cfm

In the fourth linked site above you can see where John Marshall was among those sent to France by John Adams, as a prominant Federalist, to try and resolve matters without success. Given the popular sentiment against France at that time because of its undeclared war upon us, it scarcely seems that Marshall would have given the recogntion that he did to Vattel and the law of nations in his opinion in The Venus decision in 1814 that he did and his recognition of the law of nations as heeded smong the founders in matters of citizenship if he had known (and he certainly would have known) that the presidential eligibility phrase was derived from English common law rather than the law of nations. As you can see if you read these articles that are linked the Alien and Sedition Acts, quite apart from being totally unrelated to the presidential eligibility question, were grossly unconstitutional and John Adams' support of them in particular became popularly perceived as overbearing and arrogant and vioilative of the Constitution and indeed led to free speech rights as we know them today as the Republicans rose to victory in reaction.

Jefferson and Madison it is to be noted did not join in the popular revulsion against the French which John Adams used to his political advantage. And Washington himself, who briefly came out of retirement duing this period to assume again the duties of Commander-in-Chief, it is known, was well familiar with Vattel. Indeed he never returned to the New York public library the copy of Vattel's Law of Narions that he took out of the library in New York when he was there. It was discovered years later among Washington's books and papers.